In a recent Daily Breeze article “Inventory Glut Pushes Median U.S. Housing Value Down, But in California Prices Actually Increase 3.2 Percent”, Martin Crutsinger of The Associated Press reports on the glut of housing inventory nationwide, while California shows up the rest with an increase of 3.2% over the last 5 months. The article espouses what many real estate professionals in the Southern California region have been saying for years: The housing market is different here. We are a market of local value, local businesses, desirable locations and high paid professionals.

The statistics often reported in the headline news are derived from the National Association of Realtors and can fail to describe what’s really happening in certain states, counties and local cities. These news headlines can hurt our market by creating uncertainty in the buyer’s minds. One article may be all it takes to make a buyer decide to wait for better times. Oftentimes that means they are going to pay higher prices. The housing market is strong and stays strong because we have a highly desirable finite product. Real estate values in certain California cities can stay the black year after year. In fact, according to Dataquick, a third party group, the numbers look like this for local appreciation:

Manhattan Beach (percentage appreciation in median price of single family homes year over year)

2000 14%
2001 2%
2002 17%
2003 24%
2004 24%
2005 13%
2006 5%

Hermosa Beach

2000 8%
2001 1%
2002 20%
2003 23%
2004 19%
2005 19%
2006 1%

Redondo Beach

2000 10%
2001 10%
2002 16%
2003 17%
2004 25%
2005 15%
2006 3%

Not only is the South Bay different from Los Angeles and the rest of the state and country in its real estate values, it’s also a great place to live. Link to the resources in this article for more information and sourcing.

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